The Brain of Shawn

This is Amanda. This is Amanda’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education diploma. She completed the course, passed whatever tests need to be passed, and made her parents proud.

I’d like to take this time to share my views on speaking to your kids about drugs. Do it. Often.

Yes, yes, that’s a pretty common mantra, “Talk to your kids about drugs.” What I want to stress though, is that you really need to talk with them about drugs. Openly. Freely. With it being OK to joke about it, and ask questions, and be comfortable about the topic. We should discourage drug use, but encourage drug awareness.

If your child associates “drug talks” as some dark, threatening, awkward thing that must be endured from parents — your talks will do very little once your child grows “wings” of their own. Don’t let that happen. Make it so that your kids know more about drugs than the peers trying to force them into it. Let your kid be the one that confidently and correctly calls them idiots for doing drugs.

Ok, that’s my public service message. I’m proud of Amanda. She’s awesome.

And I’m at work. Because there’s work to be done. And that’s what I do.

UPDATE: 10:30 — still here.
UPDATE: 11:30 — uh hu. Still here.
UPDATE: 12:24 — going home. Gotta work in a few hours!
UPDATE: 12:56 — OK, I forgot a server that needed to be updated. Really going home now…

My beautiful and talented wife interviewed for a position as a paraprofessional in the school library yesterday. Apparently she blew away the competition, because the interviewing process didn’t even go into a second round (normally it does).

Donna loves books, so I’m sure her enthusiasm came through in the interview. AND, the library is conveniently located approximately 2 feet from my office! (This is a good thing, my wife is teh awesome.)

So if you see my wife, be sure to congratulate her.

Aren’t snow days GREAT?!?!?! And a personal note: This will be my 6 and 8 year old’s first snow day EVAR. (They were previously homeschooled).

After an overindulgence of melange spice turkey, I had a realization that the numbers were in fact television stations. In our audio/video behemoth system, we have the ability to tune in several cable stations, and rebroadcast them throughout the school. One of the custodians wanted me to switch one of the stations so he could watch basketball or some such thing while he worked. His numbering was slightly off, but I’m certain that’s what the note meant: (UPDATE: The top transceiver is broken, so in fact “6″ had to become “27″)

So is the truth less exciting than you’d hoped, or more far fetched than you’d imagined? Either way, feel free to keep eating turkey sandwiches.

Dear software developers:

If you are unable to create your software in a way that follows standards clearly put forth by Apple, Microsoft, etc — please don’t sell software. As a possible exception, if you feel the need to create non-standard software that only works on a standalone computer and only works for the user that installed it, offer instructions on how you’ve done your misdeeds, so someone like me can fix it post-install. As a last resort, if you must sell absurdly written, voodoo requiring software, advertise in your sales pitch that it’s total crap and will only work if you use it at home. Institutions actually rely on well designed software, so that our network infrastructure can like, function and stuff.

I’m talking to you Adobe.
I’m talking to you Inspiration.
I’m talking to you Microsoft, but I know you’re not listening.

I’m sick of writing scripts, moving folders, creating aliases/symlinks, chmod -R 777ing, and otherwise borking my workstations so we can use your new whizbang crap. I hate you all, just so you know.

I recently wrote an article about the Quake III gaming engine being released open source, and the games that have developed from it. It’s here, but unless you’re a Linux Journal subscriber, you can’t read it yet. (Feel free to subscribe, by the way ,it’s a great magazine, and they have a pleasant habit of giving me money…)

Anyway, today, we had an after school gaming program. Thankfully, I just happen to have some recent experience on some free multiplayer games. Yep, there was a lab full of kids playing open source games, and loving it. No, they weren’t using Linux — but hey, baby steps. At least all the students are familiar with Linux!

It went great, and it’s tied into tutoring of At-Risk kids, so it’s a win-win situation. Well, I didn’t win much, but the kids do.

UPDATE: Huh, 3 links to Linux Journal in one post. I’m feeling a bit like a fan boy. Here: Have a couple other links not related to Linux. (BTW, that Garfield comic is one of my favorites!)

I do have my room now, so I can stop lugging around my unmentionables to conference sessions. I took a few pictures of the room, including one of the pillows as they are stacked on the bed. Now, I understand that fancy stuff is nice, but my bed(s) look like they have a pile of junk on them. It reminds me of turkeys to be quite honest. You be the judge:

It’s a very nice room, don’t get me wrong — I just think the pillows are funny. The room also has a kitchenette, with a sink and refrigerator, but nothing inside. (Well, one pudding cup that I brought with me)

Hope your day is going well. I’m looking VERY forward to dinner, because I’m incredibly hungry. I have a bit of a headache too, but hopefully that will go away with food.

I’m currently at a 3 day conference in Boyne Falls, MI. (At Boyne Mountain resort for my stalkers, mind you though, it’s a big place) I arrived around 9:30AM, and I’ve already had some great opportunities to speak with people smarter than I am. The problem is that my room won’t be available until 6PM. That, um, sucks.

Thankfully, I packed like a homeless man, and all my clothes and books are in a briefcase. (heh, briefs in a briefcase. And yes, I realize homeless folks don’t usually have briefcases.) The downside is that I need to lug that and my laptop case around to all the conference sessions today. If I’m lucky, I can get into my room long enough to throw my stuff on the bed and RUN back to the dinner buffet. Since all I’ve eaten today is granola bars and fruit roll-ups, I’m really looking forward to dinner!

Wish me luck!

I still don’t have time to write much, but here’s a quick tour of my office. You know, because I know you’ve been dying to see it.